Bloemfontein runner Kesa Molotsane has been setting the pace in the SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge, but she knows she will face a serious test when she defends her title in Port Elizabeth on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Molotsane, who runs for KPMG, won the opening race in Cape Town in March, getting her campaign for a second overall win in the Grand Prix Series off to the perfect start.<\/p>\n
She will be among thousands of women who will descend on the PE beachfront at Pollok Beach for the 25th anniversary of the country’s most beautiful road race.<\/p>\n
The 10km event gets under way at 7am, while the popular 5km race starts an hour later.<\/p>\n
Although winning in Cape Town, Molotsane said she had been suffering with flu after returning from the African Cross-Country Championships in Algeria just before the first SPAR race.<\/p>\n
“This has affected my training to a certain extent, but I am slowly but surely getting back to normal,” she said this week.<\/p>\n
“I am not counting my chickens before they hatch and am just staying positive, not worrying too much about what might or might not happen.”<\/p>\n
She added that she knew she would be up against strong opposition because of the calibre of women runners in the country.<\/p>\n
“It’s very difficult because there are so many talented ladies out there. Every race has its own challenge and anyone can win.<\/p>\n
“I believe the current group of runners are the best South Africa has ever had and we can be proud of the level of competition in the country.”<\/p>\n
Molotsane finished ahead of Glenrose Xaba in Cape Town, with Irvette van Zyl, who was six months pregnant at the time, in third place.<\/p>\n
With competitors such as Rhudo Mhonderwe, Zintle Xiniwe and Cherise Sims also in the mix, the defending champ knows the pressure will be intense on the fast PE course.<\/p>\n
Competing for the first time in PE last year, Molotsane said she had not had much time to assess the route, but was looking forward to racing along the coast.<\/p>\n
“Everything happened so fast on the day that I didn’t even learn much about the route, because before you realised it was all done,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t even compare it with other routes as I had only raced previously in Cape Town.<\/p>\n
“It was more about taking part and finishing the race rather than checking the route, but I am very happy that it takes us along the coast.”<\/p>\n
Having made her mark as a 5 000-metre track runner, Molotsane said she had put her ambitions in that event on the backburner to tackle the Women’s Challenge.<\/p>\n
“It’s currently one of the main areas of focus on my annual programme. It’s something different and you get to meet different people.<\/p>\n
“The Women’s Challenge is very important to females in South Africa and the initiatives that have been introduced through the races made me want to be part of it.”<\/p>\n
SPAR EC’s drive this year is to promote their Plastic Bag campaign, aimed at encouraging consumers to become environmentally aware and to reduce the use of plastic bags.<\/p>\n
To this end, bins placed by the Recycle Yourself organisation will be strategically positioned along the course to ensure the race route is kept tidy and clean.<\/p>\n
In addition, competitors in Port Elizabeth will each receive a spekboom plant, an indigenous pot plant that absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen, which helps to reduce the world’s carbon footprint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bloemfontein runner Kesa Molotsane has been setting the pace in the SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge, but she knows she will face a serious test when she defends her title in Port Elizabeth on Saturday. Molotsane, who runs for KPMG, won the opening race in Cape Town in March, getting her campaign for a second overall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3435],"tags":[2599,1234,3138,1898,1759,3512,3494],"class_list":["post-18001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-athletics","tag-kesa-molotsane","tag-port-elizabeth","tag-road-race","tag-spar","tag-spar-eastern-cape","tag-spar-womens-10km-challenge","tag-spar-womens-challenge-pe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}